


The things that made us family

by Amrais



Category: The Expanse (TV), The Expanse Series - James S. A. Corey
Genre: Babylon’s Ashes, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt, Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Light Angst, Nemesis Games, Space Opera, Spoilers, chosen family, loss of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 17:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20231710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amrais/pseuds/Amrais
Summary: They all have their reasons to be on the Canterbury. And maybe these reasons lead them to be family in the future.





	The things that made us family

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my first language, so please excuse any mistakes  
(but you are welcome to point them out)  
I just love the Expanse so much, the books and the TV show alike, so there’s a little oneshot about their reasons to be where they are. It’s pretty Canon compliant, Hope someone enjoys it anyway!!  
Comments and Kudos are very welcome and appreciated!

Amos 

A long time ago, Amos had learned to not be afraid. Maybe because there had been that one time, when he was eight, that he had used up all his fear for a whole lifetime or maybe two even. The streets of Baltimore where his stomping ground. He knew them like the back of his hand. That helped with all the schemings and little raids that helped him to survive in the cracks. Violence was a daily occurrence down here, where the forgotten lived, their name just good for getting their basic and nothing more.  
He couldn’t really remember his mother, just that she was the same piece of shit like all the other drug addicted whores that lived in his neighborhood. Not that he was judging. Around here you couldn’t do much else than take drugs to get by every day.  
His earliest memory is pain. Pain and darkness. They weren’t gentle with their little slaves.  
Lydia was his savior, his mother, his moral compass and ultimately, his lover.  
It was an empty feeling, to sit in the too cold shuttle, pressed in the crash couch, going through the nauseating process of traveling through space for the very first time of many times. But it wasn’t fear, he was sure of that, he wasn’t afraid no more. Maybe it was regret, when he saw his home planet shrink to the size of his fist. But he wasn’t one to look back, always just ahead.  
The belter people living in the cracks were just like the ones on earth and Amos got by fine. The vast space became his home, even before he found his family. 

Naomi

She still thought about him, everyday. Filip. Her son. Sometimes she was still longing for the fragile feel of his his tiny body in her arms, remembering how soft his brown skin was. It felt like an important part of her was missing, and if she wouldn’t work around the clock all the time, until pure exhaustion allowed her to sleep, she would go crazy with that feeling of loss. The waterhauler was a good place to try to forget. She never stopped thinking that she should have found a way to take him with her. She should have been smarter, she should have waited until she had a real plan. But she had been so much younger back then, still naive and without any control over her emotions. The guilt, that so many people where dead, because of her, had eaten her alive. She had been so stupid back then. Marco wasn’t a man, who was softened by some tears and pleading. In the end, after her failed suicide attempt, she had felt, that she couldn’t do anything to help her son, she only could try to help herself and she had left. It was her only right to him.  
There wasn’t a day where she was not thinking about him, even with her chosen family surrounding her, she missed him. 

Holden

Holden had left earth out of embarrassment and some childish kind of defiance against the corrupt, cruel ways of the earth navy. After the Navy kicked him out, he couldn’t go home. He couldn’t face his parents and tell them what happened. He packed his bags, in the middle of the night and left on a flight for Luna and from there deeper into Space. He only called mother Elise when he already was on Ceres.  
Of course it had been his god damned sense of righteousness, that had put him in the situation he was dealing with now.  
Abuse, dealt from superior to inferior, obvious was something that happened on a day to day basis in the navy. Whenever he tried to say something, to stand up against the humiliation and the bullying of the weaker, they told him to suck it up. This was the navy, shit like that was normal. He couldn’t stand it.  
And so, after watching countless harassments happening on the ship, one day he finally had enough of it and he had punched the responsible Commander, who one too many times purposely had looked the other way, right in the face. He wasn’t sorry for doing that, but he was ashamed of his dishonorable discharged. It would be hard to find another, acceptable job after that. He always could have gone back to the farm and helped out there, but another one of his flaws was pride. He couldn’t go back and put his feet under his parents table. No, leaving was the better option. Space was wide and it provided so many opportunities. In the end even his own little family and a ship to call his home. 

Alex

Alex was restless. That’s why his marriage hadn’t worked out. He just loved flying, loved his ships too much to settle down. On top of that, he was a coward. He left her without a goodbye, even without a note. Just disappeared, like his father had before him.  
Sometimes at night, he saw her face in front of him. Her beautiful brown eyes filled with accusations and rage. He got her out of his head by sitting in the Gally until late at night, drinking beer and flirting lightly with whoever was up to it. On the Canterbury there where always people awake at night. Either for their shifts, or because they couldn’t sleep. Every one of them had their own story. Nobody took a job like that, if it wasn’t convenient to be on the move for months, with a crew where nobody really talked about their past. Like the burly man with the hard eyes, that followed that dark haired, distant belter woman around like a lap dog. Something made the hair of his neck rise when he stepped into the room. But friendly as he was, Alex talked to him, laughed with him all the same. He didn’t know back then that Amos was going to be his brother.  
Space always felt kind of lonely to him, but he needed the freedom that came with it like a drug. Much later he learned, that real family didn’t feel like restrain.


End file.
